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"Our boys will be primed for this. Eels by 10+"
"Galvin initially wanted to go to Penrith."
"1. Galvin was always going to the dogs where his junior trainer was stationed
2. Pezet is a 7 and wants to play halfback. Easy.
3. Dragons offered Keon insane money. Parramatta aren't that desperate. So easy to understand this. They…"
2. Pezet is a 7 and wants to play halfback. Easy.
3. Dragons offered Keon insane money. Parramatta aren't that desperate. So easy to understand this. They…"
"It may be, but this is an extremely unreliable source."
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So Sixties, let me kick you off by giving you some input in the pre Harold Matthews level. Firstly, I think you need to split this again. I think talent identification starts to happen around 11/12. So your first period is pre-talent identification.
This is the area I'm obviously most involved with, having coached from Under 6's to 8's now. What happens at this level in terms of development. Absolutely nothing. At an age where your kids are in there key formative years, basically it's every man (kid) for themselves. I'd like to see Rugby League in general put a lot more emphasis on programs to use League to build personal qualities. And I'd like to see our club do a lot more measurement at this age. How early do certain signals show up that are going to indicate how far a player can go? It's pretty commonly accepted that ages 6 to nine are your core skill windows and the 6,7 and 8 age brackets are where kids initial speed window develops.
Next level is your talent identification level. At age 11/12/13 your school rep teams kick in, and some clubs start to run camps at this age too. By 14, kids that are talented are already being picked up for early junior development programs.
Now, where I'm interested in these two particular age-groups is not for the sake of producing better athletes (although I think ensuring potential athletes have a very strong, core skillset could be significantly improved) but rather in giving yourself the best chance of your development prospects also being good humans.
Sixties as a teacher you would know this better than anyone, but I think once a kid hits the age you begin with in your blog; their next five to six years are pretty difficult to significantly influence. They're biggest influencers - school, family, friends are all pretty much set. It basically becomes a survival of the fittest process after that point of discarding kids as they hit their ceilings either personally or physically. I would argue that a much better system needs to be focused around growing players towards your ultimate goal of NRL representation.
So if you look at Parramatta's results. Harold Matthews we're probably the #1 or #2 club. SG Ball we drop to top four. By NYC, based on recent results we drop into the bottom half a position that has flowed onto our NRL esults.
That's what you get when you create a system based on culling, rather than growth.
And in that scenario having a large nursery is actually a disadvantage. The kids you are trying to keep are the obvious talents. Every body in Rugby League development knows them because they've been outstanding since a very young age. Chance are they're the first to get agents. So you end up probably having to pay earlier than is warranted to keep a kid who in all likelihood has yet to face any real challenges. What's more, the talented kids who don't measure up because of their psychology, you've probably discarded and it's not until they become their own men in their early twenties when they're on their second or maybe third club they fulfill their potential - and that's not at their junior club.
So I posted this Sixties, because I think pretty much every junior development discussion is a waste of time - it's almost certainly takes place within the limitations of the current system, which I believe is systematically flawed and almost always puts the apple cart before the horse. Probably not what you were looking for in response to this, but it's a bug bear of mine and I felt this was an opportunity to have a rant.
I wonder whether the introduction of the NYC has a lot to answer for.
The old 3rd grade or under 23 system provided more time to develop as men. Some people truly mature later and indeed studies show that the human brain continues to develop till age 21 ( which makes drinking laws in the USA more sensible).
So, in that respect Phil, your bug bear makes the discussion worthwhile.
Phil gave a spectacular insight into the very early stages of Junior development but I guess I do disagree with his closing argument to some degree because although the system is certainly flawed, different clubs have adopted various strategies in recent years in regards to talent identification among juniors which is worth discussion.
Firstly we should navigate the sprawling web of teams and events that comprise of junior development. You have touched upon pretty much all of the important ones but there are some more at play that go beyond the reach of the club.
The fundamental pathway to first grade through the Eels, or any NRL club, is indeed Harold Matthews (U16s) > SG Ball (U18s) > Holden Cup (U20s) > NSW Cup > NRL. QLD based teams have equivalents for the Harold Matthews, SG Ball and NSW Cup. There are also U14s and U15s development/talent squads which factor heavily into the streaming of talent into the first graded competition under the banner of the Eels in the Harold Matthews.
The representative pathway tied to these squads is affiliated with the NSWRL and QRL and as such there are state representative squads for the U16s, U18s and U20s as well as the NSW/QLD Residents teams. These teams all use the most up recent state selection criteria for Origin which in turn can see someone like Travis Turnbull correctly represent QLD in the U16s despite playing an entire season of Harold Matthews with the Parramatta Eels. The only international representative squads to my immediate knowledge that are picked based on the criteria of playing in one these competitions comes from the Holden Cup where the Junior Kangaroos and Junior Kiwis are drawn from.
Schoolboy Rugby League adds an entire new layer to it all. The GIO Schoolboy Cup formerly known as the Arrive Alive Cup and before that the AMCO Shield) is the pinnacle of inter-school rugby league and is traditionally dominated by the elite sporting schools of Australia like Endeavour Sports High, Keebra Park and Patrician Brothers. The GIO Cup gets television billing, even if only on Saturday mornings, which is an extra slice of exposure for the almost certainly NRL-club affiliated talent as these schools.
Beyond the GIO Cup though the type of school that you go to will dictate your schoolboy representative pathway. In NSW you can earn selection for district and then NSW squads via the Combined High Schools team (CHS), the Combined Catholic Colleges (CCC), the Associated Schools of NSW (CAS) and the Combined Independent Schools (CIS). These four branches of NSW schools all pick state representative squads for U15s and U18s and attend the Australian Schoolboy Championships. Upon completion of the sporting carnival players can earn selection in the U15 Australian Merit Team or the Australian Schoolboys Squad depending obviously on their age.
There are also State Merit squads for younger age groups so you can get a pretty big mess of representative honours!
Coming back to our club and I can definitely agree with the downsides considered for having such a large nursery. Penrith and Parramatta have taken considerable efforts to overhaul our junior systems and bring them up to speed in recent years and have certainly seen reward for it but again the sheer amount of playing talent in our catchment means that you will miss players with potential or kids that take 'that' much longer to develop. The Warriors have a unique set of circumstances attached to their phenomenally large nursery due to the geographical 'fence' that enables them to keep a ridiculous amount of talent - even with the 15 Australian based clubs turning their eyes towards New Zealand more recently.
It is easy to point to Roosters' model to show that you do not need a big junior base to successful bring through young players. The Chooks spend a great deal of money in junior development but it doesn't funnel down the junior clubs and competitions (which is to say, sustaining growth in junior rugby league). Rather they pick they eyes out of other clubs and focus financial development on their core playing group going so far as to fly kids to and from New Zealand regularly to participate in the District Representative competitions. Melbourne employ a similar philosophy (recruiting heavily from New Zealand) although they have also actively developed junior rugby league in Victoria.
The days of the local junior has passed the game in my opinion. It is certainly important that clubs look to develop their own talent internally for a variety of reasons but increasingly we are seeing some of the best young/rookie NRL talent that emerges for any given club result from fairly late poaching by teams age wise. Take a look at some of the young guns running around in the 2015 season:
Broncos: Anthony Milford (Canberra)
Raiders: N/A
Bulldogs: Curtis Rona (Cowboys), Shaun Lane (Rabbitohs), Michael Lichaa (Sharks), Lloyd Perrett (Roosters)
Sharks: Jack Bird (Dragons), Valentine Holmes (Cowboys)
Titans: Aidan Sezer (Bulldogs), James Roberts (Rabbitohs), Nene Macdonald (Roosters), Lachlan Burr (Bulldogs), Agnatius Paasi (Warriors), Nathaniel Peteru (Warriors)
Sea Eagles: Ligi Sao (Warriors)
Storm:N/A
Knights: Korbin Sims (Broncos)
Cowboys: Ethan Lowe (Roosters), John Asiata (Roosters)
Panthers: Tyrone Peachey (Sharks), Apisai Koriasau (Rabbitohs)
Rabbitohs: Chris Grevsmuhl (Cowboys)
Dragons: N/A
Roosters: Siosiua Taukeiaho (Warriors), Jackson Hastings (Dragons)
Warriors: Sam Tomkins (Wigan)
Tigers: Jack Buchanan (Dragons), Martin Taupau (Bulldogs)
Obviously circumstances like poor behaviour lead to some of these recruitment opportunities but increasingly clubs have become aware that they can recruit serious talent later in the development cycle rather than bringing a kid through from 12-14 years of age. Two of Parramatta's brightest prospects in Josh Aloiai and Bevan French were recruited midway through said cycle, joining the Eels via the SG Ball squad from New Zealand and Inverell.
As far as talent identification goes well that is a subject worthy of its own conversation but needless to say Rugby League strikes a very unique balance between sheer physical prowess and intelligent and at times intuitive thought processes. The flows of possession and unique attacking, defensive and counter-attacking situations in which you can be thrust into combine to make assessing the potential of a young player particularly difficult. The NFL's highly compartmentalised game system means that pure physical metrics are a wonderful means of establishing the ceilings of most players but while that system has merit and it certainly applicable to a solid extent in the NRL it falls short due to the quirks of our game. Even in rival codes where they are similar possession flows and swings (AFL, football etc, even Rugby Union) I would hazard a guess that it would be easier to identify talent.
It all adds up to make a frighteningly complex beast and even the game's pre-eminent thinkers like Phil Gould, Wayne Bennett and even Brian Smith have not been able, in my opinion at least, proffer a solution that will fix the process.
Given the support given to local junior clubs, I'm sure that Parra will always look for value from these junior players. Talent identification outside our boundaries will no doubt continue to increase. From my perspective, it is a big ask for young blokes to be relocated away from their families and friends. I wonder how flying players in and out for matches should be viewed. On the one hand it allows players to stay at home. On the other hand it can't be great for team unity at that level.
Thanks again for your input Forty.
Much appreciated.
60s you talked about talent identification, etc but didn't discuss coaching to any great extent. What I'm on about is how our NYC and Wenty side have performed so poorly this year. NYC players who progressed to Wenty are performing poorly as are NYC players who were champions last year but duds this year (Nathan Davis).
Part of the reason imo why Parra have not performed so well last few years is lack of good players in lower grades not progressing to NRL level so we have to purchase leftovers from other sides. This is not to say that players who passed thru our system would not have been good players with better coaches in these higher grades. Last year our NYC team seemed to be full of good players but not one of these have progressed and stayed in our NRL team.
Hence the stupidity of the Holden Cup competition and it will become easier for clubs once it has been scrapped. The number two coach at Parramatta should be the reserve grade coach. That would mean that juniors who are good enough to be playing reserves get the same coaching and the same week-in, week-out testing as the senior guys. As such, their going to be much better prepared for NRL and clubs don't have to carry a NRL staff, a Holden Cup staff and a NSW CUp staff (which tend to be quasi-extensions of the club they feed).